Perspective
by ialwayswantedtobebrave
Summary: All of you think you know the tale of the Evil Queen. I wish to tell you the truth of how the Regina I knew became the feared monarch and villian in your fairytales. (A Tale Told Through Rocinante's Eyes)


"There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved."  
― Michael Ende, _The Neverending Story_

The story of my life is linked with someone well known in your world. I've noticed that a story all depends on one thing: perspective. Things can be told one way and thus shape a human's opinion without making them look at that story from another angle. That leads us to this tale that I wish to convey. I knew but one mistress my whole life and I was forever grateful for that. My kind were usually repeatedly sold and mistreated in those times. But my mistress never allowed that. She allowed me to accompany her throughout all the important stages of her life. Many of our world and yours know and address her as the Evil Queen. I simply call her Mistress or simply Regina.

My life started on a small estate. I was born with the intention to make me a work horse like my mother. I remember little of my first masters. Although none of it really mattered until I met her.

Every day I was let out alongside my mother in a small pasture that stood alongside the drive that led to the main house. I always loved to run and frolic alongside the fence that ran along the drive and especially when carriages went by. The day that changed my life forever was warm and full of promise. Something felt different to me…like something was about to change.

My mother told me that she had overheard the stable hands mention that an important man was coming to visit the master in hopes of acquiring a new stead for his daughter. My master was known for producing good horses for nobility as well as for the fields. I was not one of his many steeds intended for the likes of this man visiting. But I was still inquisitive about this man. Rarely did the buyers actually come to our master's property-many sent servants or their own stable hands to choose.

Much of the time those stable hands were young and inexperienced in the way to handle young horses and as such sometimes many horses were returned to our master broken and misused. I was only a a few months short of being a yearling and had thus had little training. But I was lucky that I had yet to be ruined by the hands of man for it made it easier to receive the kindness of my soon to be young mistress.

Upon seeing a sleek and stylish black carriage approaching the drive I raced away from my mother's side and reached the far corner of our pasture with the intent to run alongside the fence as the carriage drove towards the main house. As the carriage turned onto the road, I picked up a leisurely pace so I could keep pace with the brisk trot of the horses pulling it. I inquired of them about their master and the life they lived with him and his family. I never noticed the bright inquisitive face watching me from the carriage window and now looking back I wish I did.

I will stop burdening you with the small details reader and now skip ahead to the first meeting I had of my mistress. A short while after the carriage had stopped and let its inhabitants out, a stable hand came and fetched me from the pasture. I pulled and struggled at first for I was used to being out until daybreak and was rarely separated from my mother. I was led into the stable where my master stood waiting with a middle-aged gentleman and _her._

She stood a little to the left of her father, as he and the master spoke, and wore a very simple dress of light blue and she had a light cloak thrown about her shoulders for it was still transitioning from winter to spring. The first thing about her that drew my attention was the tenderness and kindness that seemed to radiate around her as she smiled at me and her brown eyes brightened with joy. She hesitantly walked towards me and reached out her hand as if to stroke my face. I knew that she was not scared of me-we can sense that. She was merely trying to see if she could gain my trust. I tossed my head and let out a neigh and placed my head against her outstretched hand. She laughed with merriment and stroked my nose with both of her hands with a gentleness that showed she knew her way around horses.

"Good boy," She whispered in a quiet voice. At that I let out a small hesitant sigh as she scratched a spot just behind my ear. She gave me hope that all humans were this kind and understanding. She turned from petting me and looked to her father and my master.

"I want him Daddy." She stated loudly with the hint of a smile in her voice.

"Are you sure sweetheart?" He asked her looking at my frame up and down. "He's not intended to be a riding horse. Arthur says that he has many other yearlings that would be more suitable…"

"No! Thank you Sir Arthur," She said interrupting her father and turning to my master, "but he's everything that I could ever want. He has..," she hesitated for a moment searching for the right word, "spirit and a free soul." She finished confidently with a nod.

My master nodded and started out of the stable with her father in tow. I knew enough to know that it was to make arrangements to take me to a new home. After they had left she turned back to me and smiled. Oh how that smile gave me comfort dear reader! My mother had had several owners before she came to our master. She had told me stories of the different kind of humans that existed-how they could seem to be one thing and turn out to be the other. But she told me that a way for ANY horse to know what kind of human that their master was by the way they smiled, for a smile could convey many things. Some men, she had told me, smiled with a nasty twitch that hinted at their cruel intentions. While others smiled with a hesitance that hinted a shy and timid nature.

My new mistress's smile was the kind my mother said all humans should have. It conveyed joy and innocence with subtly. Her eyes brightened when she smiled and I could see that she meant me no harm. That I could always place my trust in her and thus she could also place her's in me.

She looked to the stable hand that held my halter's rope. "May I lead him to his stall?" She asked reaching out to take it from the boy. Awestruck by the fact a daughter of nobility was asking to help care for what was now her horse, for all intents and purposes, the boy simply stood there. I was impatient and showed my irritation by pawing at the ground with a hoof and pulling on the rope. That startled the young boy out of his haze and made my new mistress let out a laugh.

"It seems he wants to go with my lady." The boy said handing her the lead.

She glanced at me with those expressively kind brown eyes and said, "Yes. It does seem so doesn't it?! Thank you."

She asked the boy which stall was mine and he told her that it was the farthest down on the end of the barn. She smiled her thanks once again and started down the expansive barn aisle.

She walked slowly and glanced over her shoulder, watching the boy leave the barn before she started to speak to me.

"Daddy said that I could pick any horse I wanted today," she started off saying. I suppose she was speaking her thoughts aloud but I enjoyed that she was speaking to me. I let her know by gently bumping my nose against her shoulder as we got closer to my stall. She laughed and petted my nose with a gloved hand.

"I think you chose me though. I'll have to think of a good name for you. Names are important and I don't care that you were bred to a work horse. You don't have to be what they expect you to be." She said stopping our walk to open the latch on my stall door. She walked me inside and took my halter off slowly all the while still talking to me.

"I've wanted a horse of my own since I started riding lessons with Daniel. I'm sure that you'll love him just as much as I do." She said with a faraway sound in her voice as she patted my neck. I turned to gently pull on her hair that was in a long braid down her back. I believed every word she said. I was excited for my new home and the future it would hold for me. If my new mistress's disposition was this kind, it gave me hope that this Daniel she spoke of would be the same. This human was different from others I had heard of and that I had met. She understood what my kind needed to prosper-kindness and respect.

"Regina? Sweetheart, the carriage is waiting." Her father called out startling my new mistress. I now knew her name. She jumped slightly bumping into my shoulder and placed her hand out to steady herself. She sighed in surprise and smiled to herself.

"Alright. I'm coming," She exclaimed out the stall door. She turned back to me as she left and ran one of her small gloved hands down my blaze. "I'll be back." She promised and opened the stall door and backed out of the stall. I stuck my head out my door and neighed as I watched her reach her father. She turned her head and smiled in my direction as her father escorted them both to their carriage and rode away.

With that, my fate and destiny to were tied to a human. I had acquired a new home, and now looking back now at that time I had no way of knowing or understanding that I would someday lose that kind and innocent mistress due to the cruelties she experienced at the hands of her own mother and the rest of the world. My mistress was the same as me when I met her-a free soul and full of spirit. But just like a horse's spirit can be broken, I learned that a human's can be as well.


End file.
